Copyright vs. the real time web

My colleague Liz Gannes published a great piece titled "Copyright Meets a New Worthy Foe: The Real-Time Web" over at Newteevee today. The main premise: Traditional DMCA take-down notices can't keep up with Ustream and Justin.tv anymore. Users can just jump onto streams in no time, and live events may be over before anyone could even send out an appropriate notice.

One of the aspects of the article that found really intriguing was the combination of the live web and the social graph:

"Ustream CEO John Ham says he’s seen live video feeds go from zero to a million viewers faster than ever before after being shared on Facebook and Twitter."

Liz doesn't present a definite solution to this problem, probably because there isn't just one, but she does hint at a few possibilities, one of them being this:

"(I)t’s not easy for people who start aligned as enemies to become friends. If sports leagues were to embrace Justin.tv as their viral marketing engine…well, that would be something."

That might work, but though Liz is right, it probably won't happen anytime soon. And of course it wouldn't solve any issues related to P2P live streaming.

But here's another idea: If people exchange those links via Twitter and Facebook, then why not concentrate on those sites instead of the streaming platforms? I'm not suggesting that Twitter and Facebook should block certain links or anything like that. In fact, that would be a really bad idea.

Instead, how about promoting licensed and monetized live-streaming alternatives on social networks? Alternatives that allow users to enjoy videos with their Facebook friends or Twitter community, instead of a bunch of random chat users on a live streaming site?

If content can't be taken down in real time, then the only answer might just be to put that same content up yourself - and let the real time web know about it.